on.
That's what we're losing, along with the normal span of years. The
world is soft and flabby. Yardstick children, they tell us, were
healthy at first. But _their_ children are weaker. And their
grandchildren, weaker still. The effect of the wars, the ravages of
radiation and malnutrition, have taken a terrible toll. The world is
soft and flabby today. People can't walk any more, let alone run. We
find it difficult to lift and bend and work--"

"But we won't have to worry about such matters for long," Littlejohn
hazarded. "Think of what's being done in robotics. Those recent
experiments seem to prove--"

"I know." Thurmon nodded. "We can create robots, no doubt. We have a
limited amount of raw materials to allocate to the project, and if we
can perfect automatons they'll function quite adequately. Virtually
indestructible, too, I understand. I imagine they'll still be able to
operate efficiently a hundred or more years from now--if only they
learn to oil and repair one another. Because by that time, the human
race will be gone."

"Come now, it isn't that serious--"

"Oh, but it is!" Thurmon raised himself again, with an effort. "Your
study of history should have taught you one thing, if nothing else.
The tempo is quickening. While it took mankind thousands of years to
move from the bow and arrow to the rifle, it took only a few hundred
to move from the rifle to the thermonuclear weapon. It took ages
before men mastered flight, and then in two generations they developed
satellites; in three, they reached the moon and Mars."

"But we're talking about _physical_ development."

"I know. And physically, the human race altered just as drastically in
an equally short span of time. As recently as the nineteenth century,
the incidence of disease was a thousandfold greater than it is now.
Life was short then. In the twentieth century disease lessened and
life-expectancy doubled, in certain areas. Height and weight increased
perceptibly with every passing decade. Then came Leffingwell and his
injections. Height, weight, life-expectancy have fallen perceptibly
every decade since then. The war merely hastened the process."

"You appear to have devoted a great deal of time to this question,"
Littlejohn observed.

"I have," answered the older man. "And it is not a question. It is a
fact. The one fact that confronts us all. If we proceed along our
present path, we face certain extinction in a very short time. The
strain is